The Service Course

Every April, the cycling press unleashes a slew of Paris-Roubaix tech articles in a barrage so heavy, so relentless, it makes the shelling that northern France received during World War I look like a passing shower. These articles became all the rage in the early 1990s, when pro teams got the wild hair to start throwing mountain bike parts on their rigs for a few days a year in search of some relief from the cobbles. Apparently, deep down, even the most effete Euro-pro in the disco had a soft spot in his heart for purple anodized, CNC machined parts. And RockShox.

Things have calmed down a bit equipment-wise since those heady days, but the relentless pounding of tech articles from Roubaix hasn’t slowed a bit. And that’s OK. They discuss an always-interesting mix of new technology, like making a carbon fiber bike that’s a centimeter longer with a higher rake carbon fork to smooth out the ride, and old tried-and-true technology, like making a bike that’s a centimeter longer with a higher rake fork to smooth out the ride. Hey, wait a minute…

Despite the plethora of articles meticulously detailing longer bikes, brand new forms of Zertz-No-More-Hurtz-Insertz, tied-and-soldered wheels, and hand-made tubulars aged with more care than vintage Bordeaux, it seems to me that while they fawn over the more high-profile modifications, most amateur racers overlook the one little Paris-Roubaix tweak that could actually make a significant difference in their own racing.

Probably because it costs about $16, required virtually no “R&D time,” and doesn’t have that sepia-toned, Rapha-catalog charm of beekeeper’s wire and a soldering iron.

So what is this divine secret of the Hell of the North? And why bring it up now, some weeks after closing the book on that event? Well, racing-wise, this past weekend wasn’t just the Tour of Romandie. In the MABRA zone, it was time for the local incarnation of that annual mainstay of amateur racing circuits nationwide: the race with a token stretch of rough, potholed gravel road. It’s a nice course all around, and we give the organizing club a lot of credit not just for a great course, but also for steadfastly resisting the urge to put “Roubaix” in the name. Because that’s lame. Anyway, as the race’s numerous tales of glory have circulated via the Internet (which is now apparently about 20% cycling, 78% pornography, and 2% other) and group ride chit-chat, a single common theme has emerged: racers’ fundamental inability to keep their water bottles attached to their bicycles when the road gets rough.

Numerous tales of woe – of desperation, dehydration, and surrender – resulted from this malady. As did inspiring stories of redemption, the kindness of strangers, the brotherhood of the road, and angelic saviors in the feed zone. I’d imagine similar recounts haunt every district to have such a race, but really, it’s all kind of unnecessary.

The solution, as we hinted above, is simple, and cheap. Cheap enough that you, too, can live like a pro, hoarding a special technology in your service course until that one time per year you break it out for that special race. You can even take pictures of it and write an article, if you want. Send it to cyclingnews.com, or VeloNews.com. They’ll eat it up.

Here’s how to do it: Go to almost any bike shop and buy two of the most inexpensive, bog standard stainless steel bottle cages you can find (no, not carbon, not resin, not aluminum, not scandium, not magnesium – Steel). They should run you maybe $10 a piece, or about $40 less per cage than the sexy carbon ones that sent your bottles into the woods on the first lap. Before mounting, squeeze the upper and lower portions of each cage together, far enough that the steel sets in the “farther closed” position when you let go. Now put them on your bike. Does the bottle feel tight? If not, take them off and bend them farther until it is. If you go too far, bend it back the other way. And if you want to be really obsessive, wrap the top part of the cage with a few turns of hockey tape for grip. Then put them back on the bike. I can’t stress enough how important that last step is.

Done properly, your bottle should stay put as much as you’d want, unless you do something ridiculous that you shouldn’t really be doing anyway, like falling over or running broadside into livestock. The tradeoff, of course, is that it’s a little harder to get the bottles in, but compared to riding in the dust and heat with no water, that’s the least of your problems. Sure, keeping your water bottles for the whole race might take a certain element of drama out of your race report, and the steel (and the water bottle) will add those couple of grams to your bike for those rollers just after the gravel. But on the other hand, you might get a good result if you have something to drink, and you won’t become known as the peloton beggar.

So there you go, trickle down technology straight from Paris-Roubaix to you. It’s not glamorous or new, but it’s far more useful than overpriced tied and soldered wheels, far quicker and less smelly than gluing on special tires, and far less frustrating than trying to convince your girlfriend to stand beside a hot, dusty road in your ratty wind vest with a cooler full of water bottles. Pure, simple, and utilitarian. What could be more pro than that?

Labels: Tech

There was a time not so long ago when many cyclists wished on shooting stars that their beloved sport would become more mainstream, mostly for the TV coverage and so that they wouldn’t have to explain the leg shaving and lycra quite so often. It seems that now we’ve all been cursed by their selfish wishes. An ever-growing flock of write-by-numbers articles have been appearing in mainstream publications, heralding the arrival of cycling as “the new golf.” Just to be clear, by the “new golf” they don't mean that cycling is an engaging form of moderate exercise, but rather that it is an activity that allows well-off people to "network” when they should just “work” and on which they can spend boatloads of money for shiny equipment and executive trinkets.

Well, that’s just great.

Along with all of the other jackasserey that comes along with being the new golf, there are the inevitable follow-up articles about the stupid amounts of money people will spend on various aspects of the sport, be it on travel, engaging in Walter Mitty ride-alongs with the stars, or buying bicycles that cost more than Toyotas. These articles typically involve at least one comparison to a custom suit and/or a reference to Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive, or, for the more global thinkers, Milan.

So it’s not surprising to see the latest New York Times contribution to the genre, because nobody writes about pompous people buying shit for three-to-ten times what its worth like the Gray Lady. This latest round, irritatingly titled “Cycling Success Measured in Frequent Flyer Miles” focuses on people who travel absurd distances to buy their bicycles simply to get a buying experience that makes the Mercedes dealership seem like the DMV. Don’t get me wrong, people should spend their money on what they want, provided they actually have the money. If what they want is bike stuff, that’s good for the industry that I’m extremely peripherally involved in. And I certainly don’t subscribe to the popular notion that nice equipment needs to be somehow “earned.” But let’s not pretend the social posturing accompanying this alleged trend isn’t ridiculous.

To whit, the coverboy for this particular piece, Dr. Jason Newland, traveled from his home in suburban Kansas City, Kansas to Waitsfield, Vermont to buy his new Serotta at the Vermont Fit Werx (chapeau for the transparently BMW use of the “e” rather than an "o" in Werx - very Euro). Dr. Newland is shown proudly holding his new Legend Ti over his shoulder while sporting pleated khakis and a crisp starched shirt. Many crueler writers would make jokes about this pose being the primary use for this particular bicycle, but I’m not going to go down that path. In fact, I have a lot of empathy for Dr. Newland, a triathlete who set about his noble quest in order to get a bicycle more suitable for his sport(s) than the Cannondale road bike he had. You know, more aero.

So, 1,400 Gold Card airline miles and $7,000 (not including travel costs, as the NYT article carefully notes) later, what has he acquired in his search for speed against the clock? A road bike with aero bars. Not, mind you, a Serotta triathlon/tt bike. Not that object of aero-geek lust, the Cervelo P3 Carbon. Not some overpriced semi-exotic eye-candy Euro-pro time trial bike, like a Colnago, or Pinarello, or Wilier. Not even a run-of-the-mill swoopy carbon TT bike, like a Jamis.

A road bike with aero bars. And Ksyriums.

I’m sure the folks at VFW did a bang-up job with the bike fit and set him up at the bed and breakfast with the fluffiest pillows and best damn pancakes in Vermont, but I can’t help but wonder if VFW took a little bit of advantage of Herr Doktor. There’s a lot of value in a good fit, no doubt. But if Dr. Newland’s motivation was really to get a more aerodynamic bicycle, as described in the first paragraph of the article, then he could have gotten just as aero by hitting the closest decent shop in his local Kansas City area and dropping a modest few hundred dollars for some bars, barcons, and snazzy reverse levers for the Cannondale. Because other than the bars and possibly the fit, there’s not a whole lot about his new bike that screams aero or time trial. It says expensive, yes, but not aero, which makes it pretty clear what the real goal was. If he’d spent a bit more of that $7,000 (not including travel costs) in a bike shop instead of on Expedia, he could have also floated himself a set of wheels with an aerodynamic signature better than a Cuisinart. (I’m assuming if VFW set him up with some high-zoot aero wheels, they would have been in the photo. After all, if you don’t run your Corimas in the Style section, where do you use them?)

Of course, people who have worked in shops know that there are any number of factors that could have led to Dr. Newland getting the bicycle he did. These include personal fit considerations, the unbendable desires of the client, or the strong, inexplicable magnetism between doctors and ti-carbon Serottas. So it’s probably not fair to imply that VFW took him for the metaphorical kind of ride, rather than the touchy-feely one to “gauge his riding style and position.” And we all know that if you’re really looking to fleece someone, selling them an actual time trial bike is a damn good place to start, and VFW clearly resisted that urge. But the marketing bullshit from VFW and its brethren that made it into the NYT piece makes it hard to resist pinning it on them. Here’s a sample:

VFW: “It’s a bit of a concierge service here.” Not too bad on its own, but it follows a delightful anecdote about the staff sharing leftover pizza and wine with a customer during a scrumptiously rainy afternoon. One wonders what delicious romantic dalliances might have ensued.

Cadence: “[Customers] want to scratch all their itches.” This one was in reference to customers making the purchasing trip part of a broader vacation. It’s also a bit creepy, in that I’m pretty sure they’re implying that, in addition to providing excellent bicycle-related services, they could arrange for a hooker (no, TT nerds, not that Hooker). That’ll give you an itch you need to scratch all right, but I’m sure the on-call doctor they no doubt employ could write you a script for some cream that’ll clear it right up.

SBR Multisports: “The wife wants to shop on Fifth Avenue, and the gentleman wants to shop at SBR.” At last, there’s our Fifth Avenue reference. Bonus points for the butler/tailor/waiter usage of “the gentleman,” instead of the more proletarian “husband” that would usually correspond to “wife.”

Regardless of who’s to blame for Dr. Newland accidentally buying a $7,000 (not including travel costs) butchered road bike instead of the $7,000 (not including travel costs) triathlon bike he set out to buy, I can’t help but feel that the NYT is the real villain here. The whole article just seems cruel. As we all know, the NYT usually sticks to talking about its own battle-hardened New Yorkers when it comes to reveling in the excesses of conspicuous consumption. But this article is a departure from those usual celebrations of absurd spending, and an unsavory one at that, because it dwells upon the mal-spending of a well-meaning rube from Kansas, inviting us all to have a knowing chuckle at his considerable expense. They’ve searched out an earnest Midwesterner, a simple pediatric infectious disease physician, exposed his monetary de-pantsing for all the world to see, and supplemented the humiliation with ridiculous quotes and associated prose highlighting the jackassedness of the entire enterprise. That’s just wrong, and I won’t stand for it.

Labels: industry, Just Being Mean, Speculation

Probably 10 years ago or so, VeloNews published a photo from the Ronde Van Vlaanderen/Tour of Flanders as it passed through the Flemish town of Gistel. Someone there had strung every Johan Museeuw jersey you could imagine along a clothesline at the side of the road. I mean everything – ADR, Lotto, GB-MG, Mapei, rainbow stripes, the works. The caption was simply “Flaundry.” For some reason, the term stuck with me, and with the spring classics now behind us, it seemed like a good title for a post to wash away some last thoughts from a great three weeks before hanging them out to dry.

The Liege-Tour Fallacy

This time of year, the media (and sometimes the riders) seem to delight in trying to divine Tour de France predictions from the results of Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Take, for example, this little product from AFP, which casts Valverde’s Liege win as a warning shot to fellow Tour contenders like Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) and Damiano Cunego (Lampre). I suppose they do it because Liege is often the first time the Tour heavy hitters emerge in concert from their hideouts after studiously avoiding each other for three months. In fact, that has to be it, because there’s virtually no other reason to think that Liege has any bearing on readiness to win the Tour de France.

So what does a one-day race in late April tell us about a 23 day race in July? Not a damn thing, other than some of the same people ride both races. Just look at the history. For starters, only one single man has won both Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour de France in the same year, though he did do it three times. Any guesses? Right – Eddy Merckx pulled off that particular double in 1969, 1971, and 1972. And if we know anything, it’s that Merckx’s results really can’t be extrapolated or applied to anyone else. They are what they are, and have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of us.

Looking further, only three other men can boast victories in both races, though at least one won’t be boasting, because he’s dead. Frenchman Jacques Anquetil (1934-1987), the first man to win the Tour five times (1957, 1961-1964) notched his single Liege win in 1966. The first to do the double was the Swiss Ferdi Kübler, most famous these days for the iconic picture of him freaking out with frame pump in hand. He won the Tour de France in 1950 and followed up with Liege wins in 1951 and 1952. The last to do it, of course, is Bernard Hinault, the Badger, who won Liege in 1977, won it again in a snowstorm in 1980, and took his five Tour de France titles in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1985.

So what does all of that mean? It means that nobody has won the Tour and Liege in the same year since 1972 – before any of the current contenders were even born, and in a far different era of professional cycling. It also means that the last Tour win by a winner of any edition of Liege-Bastogne-Liege was in 1985 – 23 years ago. And that looking to Liege to predict Tour victories would mean comparing the 2008 Tour contenders to Hinault and Merckx, which they ain’t.

Of course, if a Tour contender is way off the back or 10 kilos overweight at Liege, it’s not the best sign for his season. But none of them were too far off each other this year – Valverde won, slightly in front of a couple of Schlecks, and a little bit more ahead of Evans and Cunego. Given the margin of victory, that the Tour is two months away, that the Côte de La Redoute is not exactly the Alpe d’Huez, and that the Tour is roughly 22 days longer than Liege, I hardly think Valverde’s classic win tells us much at all about his Tour chances. Certainly, there are numerous winners of one of these races that have been contenders in the other (Armstrong, Lemond, and Hamilton to name a few), but you could say the same for a lot of other races and probably come up with much better correlations. Even then, it’s a dubious practice, especially when people can rip a true Tour prep race like the Dauphine Libere to pieces, and then completely tank at the real Tour.

In the end, looking at the 100+ year histories of Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour de France, you could just as well argue that winning one will almost certainly doom your chances to win the other.

The Conquistadors

As we pointed out earlier, there are now several classics winners from Spain, that sun-scorched land where the week-long stage race seems to be king. Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) has since added another Liege victory to his 2006 title, which he preceeded with a Fleche Wallonne win. Oscar Freire (Rabobank) had a great spring as well, putting in an impressive ride in support of Juan Antonio Flecha at Flanders before winning Gent-Wevelgem three days later. That was the first Spanish win in the big three cobbled classics, and Freire followed that performance up by persevering in his campaign not just through Roubaix, but through Amstel Gold and Fleche Wallonne as well. That’s a boatload of punishment for anyone.

But the real revelation isn’t the pair of Spanish winners. Igor Astarloa took the “first Spaniard” title quite awhile ago by winning the 2003 Fleche, and we’ve certainly known Valverde had the legs for a couple of years now. The real story is in the number of other Spaniards playing a role up north. This year, behind the raised hands of Valverde, you had the tireless prep work of Joachim Rodriguez (Caisse d’Epargne), who could well have the legs to take a classic himself. Flecha has made the hopefuls list for every cobbled classic and, together with Freire, has formed half of an odd leading duo for a Dutch team. And Quick.Step, that most Belgian of outfits, hired Carlos Barredo to help out Boonen at Flanders and Roubaix. That’s a pretty big endorsement.

Then there’s Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Juan Jose Oroz, who, though tough to spot, may have the most impressive classics record of the past 12 months. Peter at Bobke Strut can show you why.

The Youth Movement

For awhile there in the early half of the 2000’s, the spring classics were starting to look disturbingly like cycling’s geriatric ward. The names garnering all the press were all the trailing end of a generation that had steamrolled the north for the last decade. You had Peter Van Petegem (then Lotto-Domo) pulling off the fabled Flanders-Roubaix double in 2003 at the age of 33, and Davide Rebellin sweeping the Ardennes week at the age of 32. Museeuw was still hanging around, as were Mapei alums Michele Bartoli, Gianluca Bartolami, and Andrea Tafi. Suddenly, it seemed that becoming the next Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle and winning Roubaix at 40 was everyone’s career goal.

Now, just a few years later, only Rebellin remains active of those mentioned above, and he’s competitive at that. But though he won Paris-Nice and was in the mix in his beloved Ardennes this past week, his 36 years may finally be costing him the punch to win the single day races. Indeed, Rebellin, George Hincapie (High Road), Stefan Wesemann (Collstrop), and a few others are the last of that late 1990s-early 2000s era of riders holding on, and they’re giving way, if unwillingly, to the new generation. With the exception of Freire’s Gent-Wevelgem win (he’s 32), all of the major spring classics were won by riders 30 years old or younger: Stijn Devolder (Ronde Van Vlaanderen, 28), Tom Boonen (Paris-Roubaix, 27), Damiano Cunego (Amstel Gold, 26), Kim Kirchen (Fleche Wallonne, 30), and Alejandro Valverde (Liege-Bastogne-Liege, 28).

The Rinse Cycle

Did you feel it? Because the lack of doping news in the past three weeks was almost conspicuous in its absence.

In the time between the Ronde Van Vlaanderen depart in Bruges through the Liege finale in Ans, there was nary a doping story to be found, cycling-wise. Even better, none of the doping news that was floating about originated with this year's classics. Sure Björn Leukemans’s (formerly Silence-Lotto) testosterone suspension was upheld in Belgium, the Floyd Landis (formerly Phonak) case dragged on well into its second year, Liquigas signed Ivan Basso, and Phil and Paul knocked out the occasional Astana exclusion gripe on the Versus coverage. But really, it was pretty quiet.

I point this out apropos of nothing. I’m not saying the sport itself is cleaner, that the classics are any cleaner than the grand tours, that the drugs or the testing have improved, or that the public has lost interest in cycling’s dirty (f)laundry. I’m just saying that for three weeks, I enjoyed the focus on the racing.

Labels: Classics

Calling something a monument adds a certain air of permanence to it, a sense of historic untouchability. After all, nobody suggests adding a revolving rooftop restaurant to the Washington Monument, do they? But the five monuments of cycling – Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Paris-Roubaix, Ronde Van Vlaanderen, Milan-San Remo, and the Giro di Lombardia – while formidable, aren’t as permanent as the term might indicate. They’re more like sprightly senior citizens than stone monoliths, more akin to the quirky aunt who somehow manages to remain stylish than to sterile historical sites with interpretive audio tours.

Over the years, these races have subtly remade themselves as both cycling and the world around them have changed, retaining their history while preserving their contemporary relevance. Take Milan-San Remo. The Cipressa climb, which now seems such a natural a part of Milan-San Remo’s finale, was only added in 1982, when organizers saw that the Poggio no longer provided enough of a challenge to break up the modern peloton before the finish. When the effect of the Cipressa was no longer enough to consistently split things up, the organizers added the Le Manie climb this year.

The mighty Ronde Van Vlaanderen, too, shifts a bit each year, sometimes nipping westward from Brugge through Johan Museeuw’s hometown of Gistel and out toward the coast. Other times it drops almost straight down into the hill zone in the Flemish Ardennes. What’s more, the name “Tour of Flanders” doesn’t even anchor the race to a set start and finish. It's finished in Meerbeke recently, but not always. Same story with Italy's Giro di Lombardia, which has even started in Mendrisio, Switzerland.

And Paris-Roubaix, flat, 46-tooth inner chainring Paris-Roubaix, once had a hill! It was at Doullens, situated some 150 kilometers north of Paris, and about 100 kilometers south of Roubaix. As recently as the Sean Kelly years, the race didn’t even always finish in the iconic municipal velodrome, but rather on the street outside La Redoute’s corporate headquarters on several occasions. It’s also easy to forget that Peter Post’s remarkable record speed of 45.129 kph in 1964 was posted in the edition that boasted fewer kilometers of cobblestones than any before or since, an aberration that jumpstarted the effort by locals and the organizers to preserve and sometimes exhume the cobbled roads of northern France. Indeed, it has taken substantial yearly effort to keep Paris-Roubaix such a barbaric anachronism.

And yet, few complain about the renovations. Instead, the public forgives and even embraces the yearly eccentricities of the monuments – a privilege afforded to few things besides old men and old races. That the public does so speaks to the skill of the organizers in integrating changes without tearing the delicate fabric of these historic icons. There are no doubt many who would try to preserve some “classic” version of these races for posterity, picking a single year’s course as some sort of zenith, bolting the course markers permanently to the signposts, and simply inflating the one-kilometer-to-go banner each year.

It would be easy that way, but the effect would be predictable racing on courses preserved under glass. Instead, the organizers of the monuments have managed to remain forward-thinking, despite the weight of history they carry on their shoulders. The positive effect of progressive race planning was evident in Sunday’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege, where the new Côte de la Roche aux Faucons climb with 20 kilometers remaining jumpstarted the final selection and led to a three-rider showdown between winner Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne), Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner), and Frank Schleck (CSC).

This year wasn’t the first time Liege organizer ASO has taken action to ensure that the race doesn’t become just a longer version of Fleche Wallonne, another race to be decided on a frenzied final ascent. Faced with larger and larger groups of riders arriving together at the foot of the final Côte de Saint Nicolas climb to sprint it out on the final stretch up to Ans, ASO resurrected the "terrible triple" in 2005. The sharp, closely spaced climbs of the Côte de Wanne, Côte de Stockeau, and the Côte de La Haute Levée, icons of the Merckx era, are too far from the finish to make a final selection, but they do take their toll on the peloton. The year of their introduction, Alexander Vinokourov (then T-Mobile) outsprinted Jens Voigt (CSC) for the win after the reintroduced climbs reshaped the race.

But, just a year later, the terrible triple had been assimilated into various team strategies, and the group sprinting for the win ballooned to 12 riders, with Valverde emerging the winner. Another year on, in 2007, the group on the Saint Nicholas had grown still larger, with Danilo DiLuca taking the sprint, and so the new Roche aux Faucons was placed into the finale for 2008.

That Valverde won Liege-Bastogne-Liege again this year under different circumstances speaks to the Spaniard’s adaptability. But the fact that he won it from a group of three rather than a group of 12 speaks to La Doyenne’s adaptability as well. After 118 years, she’s still stylish.

Labels: Classics

It’s a little bit hard to see, because somehow it’s hovering just below the radar, but High Road is on what may be this young season’s finest winning binge. The biggest victory by far came in yesterday’s Flèche Wallonne, where Luxemburger Kim Kirchen ground past Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) to win the slo-mo sprint atop the mighty Mur de Huy. Yes, it's still a mid-week classic, but it's a good one. And behind that fairly prestigious win, High Road has racked up the victories in an astonishing number of locales – just not in the headline events.

While Kirchen was still feeling the aftereffects of the bubbly over in Belgium, the other half of the team was busy collecting first and second place on Stage 3 of the Tour de Georgia with Greg Henderson and Andre Griepel. Henderson’s efforts and a time bonus also gave the big New Zealander the leader’s jersey, at least until the course tilts uphill later in the week. So yeah, Wednesday was a good day.

But High Road’s low-profile streak goes much farther than fighting a good war on two fronts this week. Let’s have a look at April, which isn’t even over yet. On April 3, Mark Cavendish won his second of two consecutive stages in the Three Days of DePanne in Belgium, both in bunch sprints. Two days later in the Hel Van Het Mergelland up in the Netherlands, High Road duo Adam Hansen and Tony Martin attacked together after 15 kilometers of the one-dayer and stayed away for the rest of the day, with Martin getting the nod to take the win. The next day, Kirchen took a bunch sprint win ahead of Paolo Bettini (Quick.Step) in Stage 2 of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, took a day off, then won Stage 4. That victory came just ahead of teammate Morris Possoni, who had been in the breakaway until the peloton swept by at the last second.

A drought of five entire days followed, until Cavendish nipped Roubaix winner Tom Boonen (Quick.Step), who seems to suffer from premature gesticulation, to win the Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen and salvage a disappointing Flanders-Roubaix week for the squad. The next day, down in France, young Norwegian talent Edvald Boasson Hagen outkicked four breakaway companions to win the GP Denain. Another agonizing five day wait ensued before Kirchen and Henderson picked up the slack in Belgium and Georgia, respectively.

And that’s just April. Here’s a quick view of the rest of the early season:

January: Roger Hammond takes the team’s first win in the British cyclocross championships, and Adam Hansen adds the Aussie TT championship, all in an effort to get themselves out of the terrible black kits the team debuted with. Griepel wins four stages and the overall at the Tour Down Under, giving him the lead in the admittedly anemic ProTour competition and, thankfully, a different jersey.

February: Smitten with the fetching white look of Griepel’s ProTour jersey, the team changes to white kit with disco-rific lettering. George Hincapie and Bernhard Eisel bat cleanup at a pair of weeklong stage races, winning the final stages of the Tour of California and Volta ao Algarve, respectively.

March: Trackie-in-disguise Bradley Wiggins goes under cover with the British national team to win three gold medals at the World Track Championships, taking the individual pursuit on his own (obviously), the team pursuit, and the Madison with trade teammate Cavendish. Boasson Hagen scores the second victory of his fledgling pro career by winning the 8.3k final TT of the Criterium International.

Yes, there are no stages of Paris-Nice, no Roubaix title, no Flanders. But keep in mind we’re not even to the Dauphine yet, and the list above only notes outright victories, not podiums or admirable performances. Though there’s an argument to be made for quality over quantity, High Road’s wins, particularly those in April, are all solid wins and good media attention for the team. And when it comes down to it, there are precious few of those super-wins that can make a season on their own. Five monuments and a couple of grand tours is a pretty narrow window to shoot for, and for a team in search of a sponsor, betting big money on small odds and good luck would be a pretty risky strategy.

There’s a lesson here for teams looking to get in the papers as often as possible, even if it’s a bit less glamorous than a Tour de France GC win or hoisting a cobblestone at Roubaix: sign a ridiculous number of sprinters and let them have at it. Those GC wins take big manpower (as can certain sprinters), but if you have a few sprinters who can ride the wheels and fend for themselves, and if they’re pretty young like Griepel, Boasson Hagen, Cavendish, and Gerald Ciolek, you get pretty good media bang for your buck. If a couple of them can get relegated or spout off in the press occasionally, and Cavendish seems like a good prospect here, all the better. Call it the Robbie McEwen (Silence-Lotto) model for cycling publicity. It won’t get you on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but it’s a lot cheaper than the Lance Armstrong plan.

Labels: Classics

Watching the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday morning gave me a bit of deja vu, somehow sucking me right back to 2005. It wasn’t just the race that triggered the flashbacks, but rather the combination of watching the familiar scenes around Maastricht and stepping out briefly into the weather outside my own front door.

Here in the mid-Atlantic United States, it was one of those grey spring days with twilight from dawn to dusk and drenching rain showers blowing through every hour. Even in those interludes when it didn’t look to be raining, I was greeted by those huge, soaking rogue drops that make me look above for a dripping tree, only to get a clear view of a cloudy sky hovering like a low ceiling over the horizon. They were the type of clouds you could have ridden up into if there were a decent hill around, but standing in the flatlands, you could only peer out through the mist sandwiched between them and soaked ground.

With the rain pounding the orange tulips flat out in the lawn and the scenes of the Cauberg playing out on the computer screen, it was easy to make the mental leap back to the grey Amstel of 2005. Back then, I was perched shivering on top of that nasty little hill in a press room located in a white, corrugated steel building. Sitting in a metal building on a wet 50 degree day is a bit chilly, but the facilities were a lesson in effective truck-based service provision. Out one side of the building, a pink and black T-Mobile truck was pumping out the wi-fi signal necessary to get text and pictures out of the Ardennes hills, while a trailer on the other side housed what must have been one of the world’s finest port-o-johns. It had everything: urinals, stalls, toilet paper, running water, soap, flowers, and a 60-year-old woman who would hop up off her stool in the corner to wipe down the urinal as soon as you stepped away, making you feel somehow guilty even if you’d been exceptionally careful. And, of course, there was the Amstel truck, keeping the assembled press in good spirits by continually restocking the in-suite bar. I’m not really sure where the sandwiches and coffee were coming from, but I was certainly glad they were there.

Not everything functioned as well as the press room in 2005 though. Unlike this year’s edition, that one was held in the same eternal twilight, chilly air, and rain that blanketed the mid-Atlantic yesterday, as well as an intense fog that grounded the TV helicopters, preventing the camera motos from transmitting any live television signals. By the time the fixed position cameras on the Cauberg kicked in, we were running from the press room to that bridge you can see in the coverage to see what the race looked like, since we’d only have three chances all day.

Yes, indeed, despite the similarities in weather, there were several differences between my Amstel Gold 2005 and 2008 experiences. I saw more of the race this year, made my own coffee, and the wi-fi signal was Verizon instead of T-Mobile. The plumbing is inside the house, and if there’s a need for wiping down the toilet, I’ll likely be told in no uncertain terms to do it my damn self. But as far as the winners, there were some similarities to be had.

In 2005, the winner was Danilo Diluca (then Liguigas, now LPR), an Italian who despite his classics success always dreamed of winning the Giro d’Italia. He went on to take Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday, but came up short at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, thus failing to repeat the incredible Ardennes sweep that countryman Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) had achieved the year before. Though he failed to complete the triple that year, Diluca would return in 2007 to take his Liege before going on to realize his Giro d’Italia win, snapping closed the mouths of people like me, who always thought (and sometimes said) that he was just kidding himself.

Diluca’s Giro goal was easy to dismiss, if only because several other Italians with similar profiles and better results – Michele Bartoli, Paolo Bettini, and Davide Rebellin – had previously chased the same dream and failed. Further, once they finally cast off the shackles of grand tour expectations and surrendered to the idea that they were classics riders, and great ones at that, their careers leapt forward. Sure, we were dismissive, but we were just acting in Diluca’s best interests.

Despite the weight of history being against him, Diluca somehow (and many people continue to question just how) made it work, as has 2008 winner Damiano Cunego (Lampre), who now boasts the same Giro d’ Italia/Giro di Lombardia/Amstel Gold lines on his resume as Diluca. The difference between Cunego’s grand tour/classic equation, Diluca’s, and Bettini, Bartoli, and Rebellin’s, however, is that he’s approached it from opposite direction. Unlike his countrymen, who all notched classics before getting grand tour ideas, Cunego tasted his first big success at the 2004 Giro d’Italia, where he won four stages and the overall, and succeeded in pissing off Gilberto Simoni to no end (the former being much more difficult than the latter). He went on to take the first of his two Giro di Lombardia titles that fall, which capped off a year that also saw him win the Giro del Trentino and a host of Italian semi-classics: the GP Industria & Artigianato-Larciano, Giro dell’Appennino, GP Nobili Rubinetterie, and the GP Fred Mengoni.

But promising classics results be damned – you win a grand tour at 23, and you’ll hear only one whisper in your ear, the one that says “Tour de France.” Cunego did manage to capture the white jersey of the best young rider at that event last summer, but for someone with a three-year-old maglia rosa hanging on their wall already, that’s a bit of a hollow victory. He’s tried to recapture the magic at the Giro d’Italia several times as well, but to no avail.

So now more than ever, the whisperers are starting to go the other way on Cunego, telling him that, hey, maybe he’s a classics rider after all. And that’s really pissing him off, according to this post-Amstel article by VeloNews’ Andrew Hood. Frankly, Cunego can be irritated all he wants, but when you’re a 5’4” Italian with a good little kick, a pair of Lombardias and an Ardennes win under your belt, you start looking a hell of a lot more like Paolo Bettini than Paolo Savoldelli.

With Cunego mounting an all-out bid for the Tour this year, going so far in his mission as to buck the Italian dogma and forgo the Giro, July could hold all the answers for the 26-year-old. If he meets with success there, he’ll no doubt start developing insidious habits like showing up in low-speed wind tunnels and spending perfectly good spring classics seasons riding deserted Tour de France climbs with an unmarked car and a film crew behind him. He also will have pulled off something pretty unique in modern cycling – going from grand tour winner, to classics star, and back to grand tour winner. So far, even Diluca has only gone in one direction.

All of that, of course, would be phenomenal, and would make for a career profile not seen since Bernard Hinault (no, various combinations of Vueltas and Clasicas San Sebastian don’t count for entrance to the grand tour/classic pantheon). But if Cunego falls a bit too short in his Tour bid, that bit of failure could open up the door to a set of classics palmares that, with a good 10 more years yet to develop could put many of his predecessors to shame.

Parting Shots

• I watched Sunday’s race courtesy of free service on cycling.tv. The picture was pretty good, and the commentary has come a long way over the years – they’re no longer giving shoutouts to fans while the crucial attacks are going down. Chapeau. I’m not sure whether Amstel was supposed to be free, or whether they just opened up the feed as a result of the same subscriber login problems they had last Sunday for Paris-Roubaix. Obviously, as a non-subscriber, the free access works great for me. But if I had paid $100 for a subscription to access races that are now being aired for free, I’d be fairly irritated, to say the least. I wonder if they’re getting significant blowback along those lines or whether, in a state of lowered expectations, subscribers are just happy to be able to see the feed at all?
  
  
• During the final sprint, and well after it, the commentators were getting all riled up because they thought the caravan diversion along the left side of the straight was confusing for riders and affecting the final sprint. They were looking at the moto shot at the time and got themselves in such a fluff that they missed the overhead shot, which showed that Cunego, Schleck, and Valverde never really came close to going that way, and that the guys waving them the right direction were actually spread out over 100 meters or so. Easy to forget how the moto shot foreshortens everything, eh? I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure the diversion has been there for awhile – places to cut off on top of the Cauberg aren’t exactly plentiful.
  
  
• The shot capturing the left turn onto the Keutenberg on the last lap was pretty good. For me, that climb was perhaps the most shocking during a drive of the course. From a fairly main road, you turn onto one a hair wider than a golf cart path, more poorly maintained, and which tilts upwards like the driveway to Uncle Zeke’s mountain hideaway. When you hit the top, it’s still narrow, but dead flat and completely exposed to any hint of a breeze that may be stirring in the greater Netherlands/Germany/Belgium corridor, and the shoulders are mucky ruts. Fun stuff.
  
  
• It’s been noted elsewhere that this is the first time Cunego has ridden the Amstel Gold. That makes his victory more impressive, since making it to the finish line without getting lost is a viable goal for your first year here. There are actually points on the course with arrows pointing one direction, a second set pointing the other direction, and a third set below that pointing back in the first direction. Sure, it’s decipherable if you’re studying the map and moving at Florida-retiree-in-a-Cadillac pace, but when you’ve got other things on your mind, like racing your bike or getting to the press room to pee, things can get confusing in a hurry.
  
  
• I’d give the “know thyself” awards for Amstel go to Frank Schleck (CSC) and Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner). For differing reasons, both of them knew they wouldn’t be able to win a drag race up the Cauberg with Cunego and Valverde, and took their chances with attacks in the lead up. Schleck even managed to save enough to give it a go with Cunego in the sprint (though it turns out that was an order from the car), but the result would likely have been the same even if he’d tempered his aggression earlier on. It’s nice to see riders not just waiting for the bottom of the Cauberg and hoping for the best.
  
  
• Thomas Dekker put in a credible ride to finish in the break for home team Rabobank, which is always itchy for a victory in the only Dutch classic. But Dekker clearly wasn’t in the hunt for victory, a fact confirmed by the outstanding if unsuccessful ride put in by his young teammate Robert Gesink, who pulled extremely hard for a long time trying to get Oscar Freire into position for a Cauberg sprint. The look of effort on Gesink’s face was priceless.

Labels: Classics, international, Media, Memory Lane

In the week between Paris-Roubaix and the Amstel Gold Race, a strange migration occurs in northern Europe as the stout masters of cobblestones and rain gradually disappear from the countryside. We catch our final glimpses of them at races like the Scheldeprijs, and then they’re off to sunnier climes to rest and retool for a second, warmer season as Giro and Tour stage hunters.

But as the familiar plumage of the past few weeks departs, the peloton seems to grow tanner and thinner as its ranks swell with different subspecies, many from more southern countries. The narrow, better paved roads of the Netherlands’ Limburg region and southeast Belgium attract riders who perhaps lack the more solid constitutions necessary for the jarring, muddy roads of Flanders, but who boast physiques that find a more compatible habitat in this region’s frequent, choppy hills.

Some of the native Belgians are replaced by migrating Spaniards, like Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne), who has tuned his classics form with a win this week in Paris-Camembert, and Igor Astarloa (Milram), who will try again to find the magic that won him Fleche Wallonne in 2003. Sunny Italy, of course, produces subspecies that can thrive in both environments, but they are distinct from one another, with riders like the proven Paolo Bettini (Quick.Step) and Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) and young Ricardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) replacing the likes of Alessandro Ballan and Fabio Baldato (Lampre).

This yearly migration also marks an anomaly in cycling – that singular time of the year when grand tour riders cross the lines of specialization to participate in one-day races. The winners lists of Amstel, Fleche Wallonne, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege are dotted with those who have been successful in the three week tours –DiLuca, Armstrong, Kelly, Berzin, Zoetemelk, and Hinault to name a few. And of course, Merckx, but that’s a given. Those same lists are also marked by those who have tried and failed to master both disciplines – Hamilton, Bartoli, and the aforementioned Rebellin. This year, there are several participants who could yet hope to be durable enough for both – Damiano Cunego (Lampre), Frank Schleck (CSC), and, of course, Valverde.

As with any migration, there are always the outliers – the early arrivals and those who trail behind their departed flocks. Some riders who favor these wooded hills, like Quick.Step’s Carlos Barredo and Cofidis’ Sylvain Chavanel, arrived in time to endure and thrive on the cobbles of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, but will now seek to make good on their form in a more suitable environment. Others, stars of the flatter roads like Leif Hoste (Silence-Lotto) will ride at least through Amstel, hoping to salvage their spring seasons with a better result despite the increasingly unfavorable courses. And still others, mostly domestiques like Bram Tankink (Quick.Step), more suited to the stones than the asphalt, will hang around a bit longer before giving way to more specialized squads for the hills of the Walloon Ardennes.

Finally, of course, there are the rare local birds, like Philippe Gilbert (FDJeux), Maxime Monfort (Cofidis), and Christophe Brandt (Silence-Lotto), who come home to roost just once per year and will look for success in front of the home crowds.

It’s a strange flock, this mashup of worn out Flandriens, wiry Spaniards, and stage race hopefuls. But somehow, it works. Each year, Amstel, Fleche, and Liege serve up some of the most riveting racing of the season, and perhaps the only chance to catch a glimpse of professional cycling that is not so sliced, diced, specialized, analyzed and weighed for maximum performance. After all, when else could you see Leif Hoste battle Damiano Cunego for a win? How often would Oscar Freire face off with Frank Schleck? Like many things in cycling, Ardennes week comes but once a year. Enjoy it while you can.

The Schedule
Amstel Gold Race: Sunday, April 20
Fleche Wallonne: Wednesday, April 23
Liege-Bastogne-Liege: Sunday, April 27